While searching through the MXA files, we came upon a photo of a very young
Lars Larsson—well before he came
to America to help Edison Dye promote the sport of motocross and way
before he started Thor with his buddy
Torsten Hallman. We showed him the
photo and sat back as he told us all
about it.

“Where did you ever find that
photo? The year was 1966, and the
photo was shot while I was camping
in a small town called Tilf just outside
of Liege, Belgium. That was the place
where lots of Grand Prix riders stayed
between races in Europe. It was the
place to be, because from Tilf, you
could take off on a Friday or Saturday
and easily reach Holland, Germany or
France in just a few hours. Then, on
Sunday when the race was over, you
could head back to your home away
from home.

“It may seem strange to modernmotocross racers, but this was thedream life for a young guy (and Tilfwas the place to camp). That’s whereall the ‘old guys’ like Bill Nilsson,Sten Lundin and Rolf Tibblin werehanging out between GPs. To get toknow these idols, be part of the GrandPrix community, go to restaurantswith them, listen to their stories andlearn from them was all that a youngracer could ask for. I will never forgetthe beef steak avec provincial withpomme frites at the little restaurant inthe village. I actually visited it someyears back, and, to my surprise, itlooked the same. The photos of themotocross greats were still on thewalls.

“Naturally, there was playtime, as
the picture indicates, but it was also
work. Servicing our race bikes took
up a lot of our time, and it was good
to be around friends if you needed help or a spare part. I won the
Cinzano vermouth bottle at a race
in Italy that week, so I had it out to
brag about it. I took that bottle back
to Sweden and kept it in my parents’
house until my 40th birthday in 1981.
Then I opened it and used it as a
welcome drink for the party guests.
Mmm, it was good!

“The car in the background is a 1959Mercedes 190D. It was an old taxi cabthat I got for around $2000. I had togive my mom an IOU because shelent me the money to buy it. At night,I could fold the seats down, pump upthe air mattress, put a sleeping bagon top of it and ‘Hotel Larsson’ wasready. In the morning, I pulled outthe little gas stove to make tea andhave breakfast. Behind the car, we allpulled little open trailers to carry ourbikes and spare wheels. The trunkwas full of parts. The trailer had anextra fuel tank underneath it that held15 gallons of diesel. The reason wehad this is because we could buy die-sel fuel from farmers for much cheap-er than at gas stations—almost next tonothing. In the trunk, I had an electricfuel pump, so when the Mercedes fuelgauge got close to empty, I flipped theswitch and watched the gauge slowlyclimb up to full again!

“The 1966 Husqvarna came from
the factory, but there wasn’t any
bling-bling in those days (note my
bike stand). The Girlings on the back
are the only real high-tech items on
that bike. My Girlings had progressive
springs, plated in a gold color that a
man at a spring factory made specially for me. To make a few extra dollars,
I had him make me a lot of them so I
could sell them to other Husky riders.
It was a good little side business until
Girlings made progressive springs and
put me out of business. Those were
the days!” ❏